


cherry wine

by inejcrows



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Rock Band, F/M, Fluff, Past Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-19
Updated: 2019-06-19
Packaged: 2020-05-14 23:51:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19283734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inejcrows/pseuds/inejcrows
Summary: She’s sitting there in her oversized t-shirt and her tear stained cheeks, the moonlight coming in from the window and he thinks she might be the loveliest and most heartbreaking thing he has ever seen.





	cherry wine

**Author's Note:**

> the band au no one asked for.

“Ygritte left us. For good this time”, Arya tells her while smoking her cigarette on their parent’s porch.  
All the Starks are back home for the holidays and the two sisters find themselves sitting together outside, breathing the fresh air of the North - covered by a thick blanket.

“That bad of a fight, uh?”

“Worse. You should’ve seen her, Sans, she looked insane. Jon didn’t even do anything wrong she had been jealous of one of our fans at the show and she just… _lost_ it”.

“How’s Jon?”

“Oh, you know him. He broods even more than usual, pretends he’s okay most of the time. I don’t actually think he loved her, truly. He just feels.. _bad_ ”.

“What about the band?”

“We’re fucked, we have no lead singer and the album isn’t even finished. I kinda wish you would’ve joined us when we started, we wouldn’t be in this mess. How’s King’s Landing treating you?”

Sansa sighs, looking at the stars. After a while, she decides to tell the truth.  
“Actually, this why I came home, Arya. Me and Joffrey we.. didn’t work out”, Sansa worries the sleeve of her sweater between her fingers, pulling it down to cover the bruise on her left wrist.

“Good, I always hated that prick”

Sansa chuckles. “Yeah. Um.. he.. he didn’t treat me right. He convinced me you all hated me, didn’t want me here at home. I failed all my classes, I was so depressed, Arya, and he didn’t help. He never cared enough”, she sighs, “he hit me”.

Arya stays silent for a while, finishes her cigarette and puts it out under her shoe.  
“I’m gonna kill him”, she says and Sansa knows she means it.   
Tears threaten to fall down her cheeks, she and Arya had never been that close growing up but in King’s Landing she had caught herself thinking of her little sister the most. How much she missed her. How much she longed to be more like her, to be able to fight back.

“Don’t”, _not for me_ – she wants to add.

“Do Mum and Dad know?”, Sansa merely nods. Her mother has taken pictures of the bruises, her father has held her while she told them what had happened, why she wanted to come back home.  
“Join us”, Arya says suddenly, breaking the silence. “Join the band. Fuck Joffrey, fuck King’s Landing. Stay here and join me, Gendry and Jon”.

And Sansa does what she thought she would never do: she stops overthinking, lets herself say yes and takes the best decision of her life.

 

* * *

 

 

Sansa decides to move into the small flat the band shares, they have a spare bedroom and they need the money for rent. It works out pretty well.  
She learns the songs they have already written and they record them in the studio, deleting the ones they previously did with Ygritte.

Jon fights with Arya and Gendry over this.  
“Ygritte worked hard on this songs, it’s not fair to delete what she sung just because she..”, and he points to Sansa, “is the new replacement”.

Arya shuts him up with a look that tells him all he needs to know about what she thinks of his recent bad moods and proceeds to ignore him.  
Gendry is not really part of the fight, just a bystander but he clearly agrees with her sister and Sansa is grateful to him for it.

 

She approaches Jon the next day, when they are alone in the apartment.  
“I’m sorry”, he looks confused so she adds, “about Ygritte”.  
He doesn’t say anything, just takes a sip of the beer he’s been drinking for the past hour and keeps staring at the television screen.  
Sansa feels herself getting angry, she doesn’t like to feel dismissed or ignored. She’s gone through too fucking much to accept shitty behavior, especially from men.  
“Stop brooding, Jon Snow, it’s not a cute look on you”, she stands up and doesn’t wait for an answer.

 

He stops moping around and he starts bringing girls to their apartment.   
He goes out, he drinks and he comes back with someone new every night.  
Gendry and Arya accept it, they say he’s trying to ‘move on’ and Sansa tries so hard not to let it bother her but their bedrooms are really super close and she can hear _things_ when she’d rather sleep and it drives her crazy.  
One morning she finds herself face to face with a beautiful girl when she enters the kitchen. The girl has blonde – almost white – hair, her beauty is undeniable and there’s something very uncommon about it. She’s petite but even in the way she stands she looks proud and arrogant.

“Who are you?”, the girl asks and Sansa fights the urge to laugh in her face because _who the fuck is she_ is the better question. 

Jon decides to make his appearance right then, wearing his gray sweatpants and nothing else.   
The girl blushes a little when she sees him and Sansa rolls her eyes, reaching for her coffee cup.   
“Daenerys, this is Sansa - one of my roommates”, he says while leaning against the doorframe.  
“Are all your roommates this pretty?”, Daenerys jokes but the look she gives Sansa is anything but friendly.  
Jon laughs a little and then says, “nah, just her” and it’s Sansa’s turn to blush.  
After that, he stops bringing girls home.

 

* * *

 

 

They work a lot together, as a group.

They need four more songs to finish the album but Jon is the one that does most of the songwriting and he has found himself in a rut.   
Sansa knows his work is good, she has listened to their EP multiple times and she knows they already have an established fanbase. Jon is afraid he’s gonna disappoint them and he refuses to share something he deems “not perfect”. 

One night, she goes to the kitchen and sees him sitting at the table, with his head in his hands and his curly hair all messy. He’s wearing his glasses and Sansa can’t help but find him endearing and extremely handsome. He’s muttering to himself, twirling a pen between his fingers and she understands he’s probably trying to write.  
She smiles at him when he spots her and he smiles back - that genuine rare smile of his - and for some she feels all warm and fuzzy inside. 

She can’t sleep so she sits on the sofa in the living room, hoping she won’t bother him while he’s trying to work but he surprises her by moving out of the kitchen and sitting next to her.  
He doesn’t ask for help but he seems more relaxed now that he has company and he’s actually writing in his journal so she thinks he’s making progress.   
His breathing and the rhythmic movements of pen against paper lolls her to sleep and when her head falls on his shoulder he just makes himself more comfortable and plays with the end of her braid.   
When Sansa wakes up she’s in his arms and he’s still sleeping. She considers waking him but he looks so peaceful so she just snuggles closer to him and closes her eyes, feeling truly safe for the first time since King’s Landing.

 

After that, everything goes back to normal. They still fight and he still drives her completely crazy but their teasing is now more friendly and at night, when he’s working and she can’t sleep because she still has nightmares, they keep each other company. When they wake up in the mornings, their limbs tangled, his hand still in her hair - they don’t talk about it. He just shrugs her off gently and goes in the kitchen to prepare breakfast and start a new day.

 

* * *

  
One particular night, Jon has finished working early.

The songs for the album are all done and he knows why he has suddenly found is inspiration again but he’ll never tell. He doesn’t want to admit it, not to her and not to himself.

He looks for Sansa anyway, because he knows he’ll find her awake and because he’s a weak man and can’t fight the urge to see her.

  
He finds her in the kitchen, guitar in hand.  
“It looks ugly, but it’s clean, oh mama don’t fuss over me”, she sings and there’s so much pain in her voice Jon feels like he shouldn’t be listening but she’s mesmerizing and he can’t turn around.  
He clears his throat, just a little, hoping not to scare her.   
Sansa doesn’t look surprised at seeing him there, she just sighs and looks at him.  
Her eyes are so blue but she looks like she’s been crying and his heart breaks at the sight. He has never seen Sansa Stark so broken, so lost, so defenseless and extremely small.   
The twinkle in her eyes, the one she gets when they are fighting and she’s looking fierce and alive, the twinkle he loves ( _loves loves loves_ ) is not there but she’s still beautiful.

  
She’s sitting there in her oversized t-shirt and her tear stained cheeks, the moonlight coming in from the window and he thinks she might be the loveliest and most heartbreaking thing he has ever seen.   
All he can do is look at her and only when a tear escapes her, he moves.   
He has her in his arms before neither of them can actually understand what’s happening. The hug lasts for a long time, he can feel her tears wetting his shirt but he doesn’t care and when they finally part he wants to hold her all over again. 

Sansa is the first to break the silence.   
“He hit me. Joffrey, he..”, he stops her right there. She doesn’t need to explain if she doesn’t want to and he tells her just that. She smiles a little, she looks sad but continues her story.  
At the end he wants to kill him. He’d do it. He’d do it for her but he holds her hand instead and maybe that’s enough for now.

  
“The song is beautiful, it’s yours?”

She hands him the small journal she has in front of her and he traces the words of the song she was singing with his finger. Her handwriting is neat and elegant, just like her.

  
She smiles again, “when Arya asked me to join the band she told me ‘fuck Joffrey. Fuck King’s Landing’, so I wrote this song. And many others. Would you maybe… would you like to listen to them?”  
He nods and gods she’s beautiful, vulnerable and strong, absolutely breathtaking.   
He feels like he owes her a secret so he tells her what he has promised himself he’d never say out loud.

“I’ve started writing again because of you. All the new songs I’ve written for the album, they are all for you. Just for you”, she’s looking at him and she seems so surprised but not at all uncomfortable by the confession so he adds, “can I kiss you?”.

  
Once again, Sansa stops overthinking and says yes.

  
This is the second best decision of her life.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> the snippet of sansa song and the title are from “cherry wine” by hozier.


End file.
